US Army awards Chemring over $300 million for infrared decoy flares, reopens shut Pennsylvania plant
The Pentagon is putting over $300 million into infrared decoy flares, the countermeasures that throw heat-seeking missiles off military aircraft, and reopening a Pennsylvania plant shut in 2025. Chemring (LSE: CHG) won the Army deal, with at least $35M a year guaranteed for three
Modern combat aircraft survive heat-seeking missiles largely by tricking them, and the Pentagon just committed more than $300 million to keep making the tools that do it. The US Army awarded Chemring (LSE: CHG) an indefinite-delivery contract for aviation expendable pyrophoric countermeasures, the infrared decoy flares that burn hot enough to lure an incoming missile away from an aircraft's engines. The award covers more than hardware. It reopens the Alloy Surfaces Company facility in Chester, Pennsylvania, which shut down in 2025, and funds three years of production there. A separate $45 million agreement under the Department of War's Other Transaction Authority pays Chemring to restart manufacturing and transfer intellectual property rights for the decoys to the government, bringing the combined value of the awards to about $345 million. The contract guarantees minimum orders of $35 million a year for the first three years, with deliveries expected to begin in the 2028 financial year. The countermeasures are meant to protect aircraft across the Army, Air Force, Navy and Special Operations Command, and will also reach allied nations through Foreign Military Sales. The decision reflects a broader pattern in US defense planning: as cheap drones and proliferating man-portable missiles raise the threat to low-flying aircraft and helicopters, the Pentagon is moving to rebuild domestic production of consumable defenses it had allowed to lapse. Reopening a closed flare plant is less visible than a new fighter program, but countermeasure stockpiles are exactly the kind of supply that gets exhausted quickly in a sustained conflict.